


The Restoring Force

by thecarlysutra



Category: Top Gun (1986)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-22
Updated: 2010-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before TOPGUN, Tom learns to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Restoring Force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myhappyface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhappyface/gifts).



  
Tom’s father was a Vice Admiral, and every decision he made for his son was made with the end goal of getting his boy at least three stars. Tom spent his life in boarding schools; as soon as he graduated from one, he was shipped off to another, transferred directly from pen to pen like some dangerous zoo animal. Tom excelled. Not for desire of his father’s approval, nor fear of the man’s iron hand and perfect aim. Tom was smart, and filled to bursting with potential energy, like a roller coaster poised at the top of the track. All he wanted to do was fall, anything to throw off the shackling restoring force. It was dangerous; he was smart enough to know this. But so long as he had a target to expend his wild energy, he felt all right in his own skin. He stopped being dangerous.

And so Tom surprised people, the family who knew him as yearly, uniformed photographs on the mantle, by excelling not only at the routines of military life, but also at physics, calculus, lacrosse. He was a fast and voracious learner, and he could hit any target he aimed at.

The first time he flew, Tom felt his body quiet. The nervous motion left his hands, and for the first time in his life, his vision expanded. Tom saw the world not as a series of targets, but as a field. It was like waking up and finally—finally—being at home.  



End file.
